


stockholm syndrome, the greater good, and other overused excuses

by WannabeMarySue



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, mutant AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 14:16:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1782067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WannabeMarySue/pseuds/WannabeMarySue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just tack mutantism onto the ever-growing list of things humans suck at accepting. Also add a huge “fuck you” from Michael Jones to that list while you’re at it. Because nothing in Michael’s life could ever just stay normal, especially after you throw in a British man who qualified more as an overgrown pigeon than a doctor, a dragon-girl with red hair and her creepy daddy substitute, a drunk head doctor, two overly-superstitious idiots, and a nurse who told way too many puns to be legal. For a while Michael's life had been ruined in the best way possible. And then everything had gone to hell. Like usual. Welcome to RT Labs.<br/>(work abandoned until future notice)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue-Privately Funded Labs Are Full Of Drunk People, Idiots, and Dragons

**Author's Note:**

> The first installment of a multi-fic mutant AU I have been working on.  
> Words: 4486  
> TW: slight blood/gore, language  
> Pairings: Mavin, Joelay (semi-platonic), Lindsay and Ryan SuperTeam, Josh and Ray BrOTP  
> Chapter content will match rating as the story progresses. Enjoy  
> 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He had expected another unorthodox doctor, like Dr. Ramsey, but not Gavin. Definitely not Gavin. Something told him that nobody really expected Gavin. The man was all gangly limbs and unruly hair and confusing accent, and though his office walls were decorated with many different official looking diplomas and papers, Michael was seriously doubting the man’s credentials."

_Listen to this as you read:_ [ [x] ](http://8tracks.com/mackross52/a-maelstrom-in-reverse-playlist)_(left click and open in a new tab) Also check out my[tumblr ](http://lieutenantsmithandcaboose.tumblr.com/)for extras.  
_

**Scene 1**

**Never Trust A Drunk Man**

    Michael had spent almost ten years in a government run lab and never once had he smelled anything beyond over sterilized white sheets, blood, and crisp metal, and yet, the moment he stepped into RT Labs, smoky vanilla and cinnamon tickled his nose, wafting over from decorative candles that cluttered the waiting room’s front desk. A blonde head poked out from behind an overgrown desk plant, tufts of hair sticking out in several directions.

    “Oh god, you’re here already?” The receptionist asked him, clearly flustered. The sound of several piles of paper slowly falling to the floor followed her abruptly aborted attempt at standing up.

    “Just, uh, give me one moment please.” The blonde head disappeared back behind the plant and loud rustling filled the air.

    “Do you need some help back there?” Michael asked, inching closer to the desk. He peeked around the leafy fronds, but jumped backwards, startled, when a blonde head suddenly popped up in front of him.

    “What? Me?” Her hair was flying everywhere as she whipped around to stop another pile of papers from sliding to the ground. “No, everything is totally under control. Just one more sec.” She disappeared below the desk again to finish cleaning up the mess of papers.

    Michael stood there awkwardly in front of the desk for another minute, reluctantly avoiding the desire to peak behind the desk again.

    “There we go...” She jumped up suddenly, a pile of manically piled papers clutched tightly in her hands. Michael stepped back in surprise, his fight or flight instincts kicking in.

    “Sorry about that! Just a little backed up with paper work today, plus the plant Caleb grew when he  broke his leg really needs a trim, but I don’t have time. He grew it especially for me, you know, and I couldn’t just say no, and I said I would keep it on my desk...well now it has to stay there, I guess, and like I said, I don’t have time to trim it so...” She trailed off, smiling at Michael apologetically.

    Michael stared at the receptionist in utter bemusement, his mouth half-hanging open.

    “It’s just one of those days,” She continued, rolling her eyes, “I’m Kara by the way! The receptionist, you know, in charge of every goddamn piece of paper work in this entire lab!”

    “Do you, uh, need like some tea or something?” Michael asked tentatively, “Maybe a spa day?”

    “I need a boss who actually does his own paperwork!” Kara half-yelled, glaring towards a man that had just opened the door that led to the main labs.

    “Is this a bad time?” He asked, a lazy  smirk ghosting across his lips.

    “It’s always a bad time in the reception room,” Kara muttered, stomping over to her desk to put down the pile of papers. Turning back around, Kara held a thick file in front of her, thumbing through it deftly.

    “Michael Jones, right? New transfer from the New Jersey Government Lab?” She asked without looking up from the file, all business now.

    “Oooh, he’s the angry one, right?” Kara’s boss asked excitedly, slurping from the mug cradled in his hands.

    “ _He_ is standing right here,” Michael said testily, glaring at the man.

    The man winked at Michael and just took another sip of his drink. “Kara, don’t worry, I’ve already read over his file. I’ll handle it from here, Barb is about to take her lunch break, so why don’t you go eat with her and de-stress a little before you cause an entire avalanche on your desk.

    “You sure?” Kara looked tentatively over at her desk and then back at her boss, “I mean, I can totally handle it. This is nothing really. You do remember March 7th last year right? God that was absolutely--”

    “Kara!” The man looked at her pointedly, “Go eat, take a load off. I got this one.”

    “Okay, yeah. Maybe I will go eat. A little down time never hurt anyone, right?” Kara giggled, and with a wave at the two of them, grabbed her purse off her desk and walked outside.

    “She’s a good kid,” The man muttered into his mug, “Hyperactive, but one of the hardest workers we have.” He nodded to himself and took a long chug of his drink, finishing it off.

    “I don’t suppose patients are allowed to have coffee too?” Michael asked, staring longingly at the empty mug. It had been a very long drive from Jersey, and a car ride with two very muscular, very scary guys did not make for a good napping environment.

The man looked down at his empty mug. “What this? This wasn’t coffee. It was whiskey.” He winked at Michael again and started walking towards the lab door.

“C’mon, I’ll show you around, help you get the hang of things around here. I’ll tell you this now though, RT Labs is way fucking better than any torturous government run facility you had to stay in. I’m sorry you had to spend so long in there.”

    “Yeah well, I survived didn’t I?” Michael gave him a half-hearted smile that made the freckles on his cheeks crease beneath his hard, dark eyes.

    “It’s better here. I promise.” That was the man’s only reply.

    They walked through the door into a three-way intersection with long hallways pointing off in all directions.

    “Wait, before we start this whole tour thing, what’s your name?” Michael looked expectantly at the mutation lab boss who drank whiskey out of a mug at work and let his receptionist have an early lunch break, because honestly Michael’s first twenty minutes here had been infinitely better than ten years at the Jersey lab and something told him it all had to do with this fucking guy.

    “I’m Geoff. Geoff Ramsey. Head doctor in charge of all these fuckers here at RT Labs.”

    “Oh yeah, my old doctor mentioned you...something about missing a pre-med final because of you, some wet dog shit, and a roomba?”

    “Oh yeah!” Geoff threw his head back as huge, creaking bellows of laughter poured from within him, “Man I totally forgot about that! Yeah, William was always one to hold a grudge. Shame really… Anyway, let’s get this tour over with, we’ve both got better things to do, trust me.” Geoff pointed to the hallway on their left. “Girl’s rooms, doctors and patients, makes for easier access for emergencies at nights and shit. Don’t mess with the girls, they’ll fuck you up. Trust me. My wife’s one of them. Head of bio-med research here.”

    “Is your wife like you?” Michael asked, wondering if everyone here was fucking batshit insane or if maybe this guy was just an eccentric.

    “What, Griffon? Well, she’s fucking completely gorgeous, wickedly smart, and a total badass, so yeah, basically just like me.”

    “Yeah, right,” Michael snorted, rolling his eyes and turning towards the next hallway.

    “The middle one’s all the different medical rooms and labs. Surgery rooms, therapy rooms, physical training, you name it we got it down that hallway.” Geoff gestured to the last hallway.

    “Guy’s rooms. Same shit as the girl’s ones except I’m not coming in at night and rocking you back to sleep just because you had some stupid nightmare about aliens. Gavin’ll do that. He’s better at cuddling.”

    Geoff walked down the hallway that led to the guy’s rooms, gesturing for Michael to follow. Everything here was so much more different than his old lab. The walls were all painted a cheery red and blue color scheme and there wasn’t a hint of industrial strength cleaning supplies in the air. And also no muffled screaming; that was always a plus.

    “This’ll be your room.” Geoff gestured at a plain white door with a metal sign that said 4948 on it.

    “Holy shit, you have over 4000 rooms in this place?” Michael exclaimed in disbelief.

    “What? Oh, that. No, we just like fucking with people.” Geoff snickered as he unlocked the room for Michael, pushing open the door to let him inside.

In the room was a simple cot with a black and green bedspread pushed against the wall under a window. Next to it was a small bedside table with a lamp, and a dresser pressed up against the far wall completed the ensemble. It was simple, but yet another upgrade from his previous accommodations. The ground was carpeted and everything smelled fresh and clean, so unlike the distinctly human stench that had pervaded his old cell.

“Basically the only other thing you need to know about is the game room down the hall. It’s labelled game room and very hard to miss, trust me, and the cafeteria is through the last door down the hallway. Your assigned doctor is Gavin, good luck with that, he’s an idiot. See you at dinner.” Geoff turned and sauntered out of the room, muttering something about needing more whiskey.

Michael sat down on his bed with a thump, the events of the day all hitting him at once. His stressful car ride to an unknown lab, The Kara Incident, Geoff the Drunk Head Doctor, and now he just remembered that the only clothes he had were the jeans, t-shirt, and underwear that he was wearing right now. But that didn’t matter. None of it mattered, because this place didn’t smell like death, his bed actually felt like a bed, and the people here didn’t seem like government droids sent to torture every last bit of mutation out of him until he was a dry husk of himself.

Michael had grown up in that New Jersey lab. Had gone through test after test after test as a kid, as a teen. As a person. He had never been referred to by his name there. It was never Michael, just patient. And more often than not he was strapped to a table for fear that he would lose control and injure a doctor. But here, neither Geoff nor Kara had looked at him any different from the moment he had walked in the door, and both of them had read his file. Both of them knew what he had done, what he could do. Neither had given two shits about it. That, beyond anything else at this crackpot, upside down lab had surprised him the most. Because people with emotion mutations were the most volatile; they were always the hardest to control, but Geoff and Kara had gotten it from the very beginning, if you don’t try to control him, he won’t hurt you.

Ten years and his old doctors still hadn’t figured that one out. Not that he had been helping them exactly, but still, a little empathy never hurt anybody. Michael flopped back onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling. Sure, he had just moved from one lab to another, but this one felt...different. More open. And fucking smelled way better that was for sure. Michael thought about finding the game room or the cafeteria, or maybe yelling around for his stupid doctor, but his eyelids were heavy, and he had never gotten any coffee or whiskey, so in the end, he just slept.

**Scene 2**

**Doctors Are Just As Scared Of You (And This Should Worry You)**

    “Ryan, it’s like this, what if he actually believes all the dumb shit everybody says about me, and refuses to have me as his doctor. What then? I’ll never have my own proper patient? I’ll always just be a fucking pseudo-nurse!” Gavin stomped his foot with a huff, glaring at Ryan’s back.

Ryan turned away from where he was staring into the semi-darkness to look pointedly at Gavin. Or what he thought was Gavin; he couldn’t quite tell with the one way glass.

“Gav, first off, this guy is coming from a government lab up in Jersey right? I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to be too picky about his doctor. Also, good use of the word pseudo. I applaud you.” Ryan turned back around and glared back towards the far wall in the room.

“It’s almost dinnertime, dammit, Lindsay. It’s time to wake up.” He dodged a flying shoe to the face and smirked when he heard Gavin squawk as it hit the glass wall behind him.

“I’m trying to be nice, but if you refuse to get up, I will take drastic measures.” There was no response.

“But Ryan,” Gavin whined, still not over his first patient worries, “What if he doesn’t like me? Or if he makes fun of my accent?”

“I make fun of your accent,” Ryan pointed out, “So does Geoff...and everybody else for that matter.”

“Well yeah, but that’s you guys. He’s supposed to be my patient. I need some respect from him, right?”

“One second, Gav,” Ryan said, pulling an air horn out of his pocket. “ I warned you Linds.” He pressed down on the button, wincing as a shrill squeal echoed throughout the room. From the corner, an angry shout rose above the horn and a telltale rustling prompted Ryan to get moving towards the door.

“Ryan! Ryan watch out! Here she comes! Oooh, she’s right behind you!’ Gavin was screaming, jumping up and down from behind the safety of the glass wall.

“Ooommphh,” A body slammed into his from behind, sending them both rolling to the floor. They flipped over several times until they landed with their legs tangled together, half on-top of each other. Ryan blew an errant piece of red hair out of his mouth. “This wouldn’t always have to happen if you would just get up at a normal time,” he grumbled, disentangling himself.

“Yeah, well, that’s no fun, now is it,” Lindsay replied with a cheerful smile, picking herself up as well, carefully brushing off her knees while Ryan checked to make sure her wings were all sorted out.

“Of they’re fine, quit fussing, you old papa bear,” She muttered, rolling her eyes at him.

“Oh, aren’t you two just so adorable,” Gavin cooed.

“Shut up or I’ll come tackle you next,” Lindsay replied with a fierce grin. Gavin squawked again and scrambled back towards the exit, laughing wildly as he ran out the door.

Ryan chuckled, “Gavin’s extra worked up today. His new patient just arrived from New Jersey. C’mon, let’s go get dinner; I’m starving.”

They walked towards the cafeteria together, Lindsay’s wings rubbing against Ryan’s arm every few step.

“You know what would be cool? If Clique by Jay-Z started playing right now.”

“Shut up, Lindsay.”

 

**Scene 3**

**I Don’t See Dead People (I Just Hear Them)**

    “Hey, look over there,” Josh nudged Ray with his elbow, “It’s the new guy all the docs have been whispering about.”

    Ray glanced over to where Josh was pointing. Sitting alone at a table in the corner, glaring down at his plate of chicken alfredo as if it had personally affronted him was a guy about their age with unruly auburn hair and a distinct aura of get-the-everliving-fuck-away-from-me.

    “Yeah, well, now we know why they’ve been whispering about him. Dude looks scary as fuck,” Ray started to walk towards their usual table in the middle of the room when Josh grabbed his elbow, jerking him to a stop.

    “Let’s go eat with him,” he suggested, tugging Ray in the opposite direction.

    “No way, man! Dude’s having a staring match with his pasta, I’m not getting in between that!”

    “Maybe he’s just allergic to gluten and doesn’t wanna ask if there’s something else to eat?” Josh suggested, pulling Ray towards the table.

    Ray pulled back halfheartedly, “Why don’t we not find out?” He replied, attempting to escape Josh’s grasp without spilling his food everywhere.

    “Too late!” Josh whispered with a smile, plopping down across from the guy glaring at this pasta.

    Ray heaved a sigh and sat down next to Josh, resigned to whatever harebrained scheme his friend had dragged him into. The guy looked up from his pasta and fixed both of them with the same intense glare he had been leveling at his pasta.

    “What the fuck is this,” He asked, gesturing towards the food on his plate.

    “Chicken alfredo?” Ray questioned, glancing down to check that it was, in fact, chicken alfredo and not some strange inedible concoction, but no, there it was sitting innocently on his plate, the creamy sauce congealing on the cooling chicken.

    “Dude, are you okay?” Josh asked, leaning forward to peer into the guy’s eyes.

    “What the fuck?” He screeched, reeling backwards away from Josh.

    “Oh, right. Yeah, sorry, the snakes...forgot not everybody’s used to them...they just like to give people kisses, they won’t bite. I promise.” Josh leaned back sheepishly in his seat, reaching up to calm down the snakes anxiously hissing around his ears. They settled back down, a few of them curling back up under his beanie to sleep.

    “Back to you and your weird pasta grudge,” Ray said, quickly steering the conversation away from Josh. The guy looked over at him and then glared back down at his pasta.

    “Well, I guess I’m just not used to edible looking food. I got a little wary.”

    “A little wary?” Ray and Josh exchanged incredulous looks, “Dude, it looked like you were going to rip your pasta to shreds. And then...ya know...rip the rest of us to shreds.” Ray half-shrugged his shoulders, trying to show he meant no offense.

    “Yeah, that’s just my face. It does that…” The guy looked down at his pasta again, but Ray noticed his red-tinged ears and made a mental note to avoid any topics involving facial expressions with this guy.

    “Well hey, try the pasta,” Josh prompted, already digging into his own. “Usually they don’t let Adam back into the kitchen, ‘cause hair nets for beards are just too much hassle, but the man makes a mean alfredo, so none of us are complaining.”

    “Says you,” Ray muttered, poking at something that looked suspiciously like a curling, brown hair.

    “So, what’s your name, Mr. Grumpy Face,” Josh asked, waving his fork in the guy’s general direction. He looked taken aback by Josh’s brazen attempts at being friendly; a look Ray was all too familiar with after all this time. Years of living here with Josh and befriending lost looking mutants in the cafeteria made Ray forget sometimes that not everything was as okay as the RT staff made it seem.

    “I’m Michael. Just transferred here from a government lab up in New Jersey,” said the new mutant, finally trying a bite of his pasta.

    “Transferred? You must’ve caught somebody's eye. They don’t just transfer anybody you know.” Ray was intrigued now. He had overheard Joel talking about Gavin getting a special patient, but he had figured it was just some kid Geoff had taken a liking to, not this guy.

    “What’s your deal then,” Ray asked abruptly. Josh kicked his leg, but Ray kept pushing. “Like Josh said, they don’t just transfer anybody. What makes you special?”

    ‘I have no fucking clue, man. My old doc just told me they were moving me to Texas, and next thing I know, I’m here and there’s a crazy receptionist with a big ass plant, and apparently a drunk guy runs this place, and on the way here I saw a guy playing frisbee with himself in the bathroom, and that’s not even some weird innuendo. He was literally playing fucking frisbee in the bathroom. What the actual fuck is wrong with this place?” Michael paused in his rant, breathing heavily and staring at both Josh and Ray imploringly.

    “Dude, it’s just your average mutant lab,” Ray replied.

    “Average? I spent the past ten years of my life in an “average” mutant lab, and I can assure you that this is in no fucking way average--” Michael froze, his eyes widening as he stared at Ray.

    Ray couldn’t see him of course. Couldn’t hear him either. He was squeezing his eyes shut, head cradled tightly between his hands, his breath rasping out of his throat as he tried to ignore the cool whisperings that were sneaking up slowly behind him. He could hear them oozing into his ears, soft words with no meaning implanting themselves into his brain. He started shaking, violently hitting his ears, anything to get the noises, the voices to stop. Someone grabbed his body, forcing him to still his frantic rocking back and forth. A needle was jabbed into his arm, cool liquid pumping into his veins to sedate him. He knew the drill by now; he has an attack, someone yells for Joel, Joel comes running in with a big needle and strong arms and carries him away from the voices. Far, far away. And that’s why he had spent years befriending lost looking mutants in the cafeteria. Because neither of them could ever leave. Josh couldn’t exactly get rid of his head, and Ray would never escape the voices without Joel. And he would rather kill himself than live with them.

 

**Scene 4**

**This Is An Overgrown Pigeon, Not A Doctor**

    Michael’s doctor, was, well, first of all he was British. And not some normal British person who you could more or less understand perfectly fine. No, apparently Dr. Gavin Free enjoyed stretching his rights as an accented person and made up an entire language all his own of just complete  and utter dumb. Second of all, Michael’s doctor wasn’t very...professional...at all.

    “Look, for the last fucking time, my name is Michael, say it with me, Mich-ael. Emphasis on the -ael. Not Micool.” He glared at Gavin, tired of the almost ten minute long argument on how to pronounce his name.

    “For the last bloody time, that’s what I’m saying, Michael!” Gavin screeched, tugging irately at his hair, making it stand even more on end. “Look, this is not how I wanted our first session to go, let’s just both sit back down and have a nice, calm little chat.”

    “How the fuck am I supposed to have a ‘chat’ when my doctor is a foreign idiot?” Michael yelled, spit flying onto Gavin’s face. Gavin laughed, wiping it off with a goofy smile. Michael’s face reddened. He could feel his blood pressure rising, the anger and annoyance and confusion elevating inside of him, waiting to burst.

    There was a bang on the door as it flew open, a blonde woman standing before them  with a pile of boxes clutched to her chest. For one scary moment, Michael thought it was Kara again, but when Gavin leapt up to help lighten the woman’s load, he called her Barb, so Michael figured he was safe. Michael was also perfectly content with lying to himself about his relative safety around any of the psychos in the lab.

    “Thanks so much, Gav, just hauling some paperwork that Kara finally sorted through around to all the offices. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

    “Pretty sure the entire lab’s heard how our session’s going so far, so, no worries.” Gavin beamed up at Barbara, placing the boxes on his desk.

    Michael glanced over Barbara; she was wearing pale yellow scrubs and a laminated name tag pinned on her chest labelled her head nurse. Noticing Michael’s examination, she winked down at him, regathered her stack of boxes, and left the office with a casual, “See you at dinner!”

    Michael looked back at Gavin, who was leaning against the edge of his desk, studiously staring at his patient.

    “What?” Michael barked, tired of all the cryptic staring.

    “Would you rather have four legs and no arms, or four arms and no legs?” Gavin asked.

    Michael blinked up at the doctor, unable to fully comprehend the query.

    “What?” He asked again, this time more confused than annoyed.

    “Like, you’d have either four legs, so like a weird human-dog hybrid, or you’d be all arms like a monkey,” Gavin attempted to explain.

    Michael thought about it for a moment, letting the ridiculous question distract him from the already plenty ridiculous therapy session.

    “I suppose...that four arms would be more useful...opposable thumbs and all that.” Michael didn’t know what to make of this situation. What to make of any of this really. He had woken up this morning to find a neatly typed up schedule tacked to his door. His therapy sessions, recreational times, and meal times had all been written up in a time-table for his convenience. The paper had told him to report to doctor’s office #3 after breakfast for his first session with Dr. Free.

    He had expected another unorthodox doctor, like Dr. Ramsey, but not Gavin. Definitely not Gavin. Something told him that nobody really expected Gavin. The man was all gangly limbs and unruly hair and confusing accent, and though his walls were decorated in many different official looking diplomas and papers, Michael was seriously doubting the man’s credentials.

    Gavin cleared his throat, shifting his perch on the edge of his desk, losing his balance in the process he fell sideways, sending  the box Barbara had brought in crashing to the ground. He laughed, an unchecked crow that made Michael want to grin despite his annoyance with this whole ordeal.

    “Look, Michael, we got off on rather the wrong foot,” Gavin started, resettling himself against his desk and leaning towards Michael conspiratorially, “I’m here as your doctor, but also your friend--”

    “Why are you talking like that?” Michael interrupted, weirded out by the British man’s sudden switch in demeanor.

    “Dammit!” Gavin half-yelled, tugging frustratedly at his hair again. “Look, everybody around here is really yanking my knob, telling me I’m going to do great with my new patient. You know you’re my first official patient, right? And, well, you aren’t fucking making any of this easy, you smegpot!”

    Michael blinked up at Gavin, stunned. He had only ever seen an outburst like that, well, whenever he was the one yelling. Gavin sighed and collapsed into the chair next to Michael, who honestly didn’t know what to say in the wake of that rant. For several moments they sat there in silence, Michael mostly just confused, and Gavin mortified beyond belief.

    Finally, in a small voice, Gavin asked, “I don’t suppose you wanna play some video games. I have my x-box hooked up to an extra monitor, Geoff doesn’t mind as long as we say its for therapy.”

    “You have Halo?”

    “Oh yes I do, my boi!” Gavin said with a grin, leaping out of his chair to turn on the x-box and grab the controllers.

    An hour later, Geoff peeked his head inside Gavin’s office to check-in on the “overly-loud, indiscernible screeches and war cries” echoing from Gavin’s office. All he saw was two idiots half-tackling each others in attempts to disrupt the others game play. He silently shut the door, glad that everything looked like it was working out just fine.


	2. Everything That Flies Has A Very Strong Chance Of Burning And Crashing To The Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “For what it’s worth, Gavin, I--I don’t enjoy doing this. Any of it. It’s just what’s necessary.”  
> “I’m afraid that’s not worth very much, Ryan,” Gavin said, watching Michael as he settled down again on the table, falling back into his fitful sleep.  
> “I didn’t think it would be,” Ryan replied as he left the room, leaving Gavin to watch over Michael alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2nd part's up, woot woot! Shit hits the fan here, so hold on tight.  
> TW: Blood, vague mentions of suicide, body dysmorphia, self-harm, depression

**Scene 1**

**Our Ideas Of Safe Are Very, Very Different**    

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. Pain radiated from between Lindsay’s wings, spreading like white hot fire up and down her back.

    Carefully, she sat up, the ripped up sheets slipping off her hospital gown-clad body. Lindsay could feel her matted hair hanging half-way down her bare back, the grime and grease mixing with the debris in her feathers. The room around her was barren, the walls achingly white and unforgiving. For a moment, everything tilted to the side, and the pain between her wings was eclipsed by the gut-wrenching nausea in her stomach. She doubled over on herself, dry heaving. Nothing came out. She hadn’t eaten in a very long time.

    Taking several more moments to settle herself, Lindsay attempted to push past the cracks in her mind, to remember how she had ended up all alone in this room. She was starving, yet nausea rolled over her in waves again and again. There was a crick in her neck, and what had once been her favorite jeans and sweater had at some point been switched out for a ragged, dirty hospital gown.

    She had to find Ryan.

    He would know what to do. He always knew what to do. Silently telling her stomach to get its shit together, she slowly maneuvered her way off the cot, carefully holding her right wing at an angle that would keep the muscles from straining too badly. The world around her lilted to the side again, the pristine walls falling away in a kaleidoscope of white. Once the room had almost righted itself, she began to stumble her way towards the door. It was barely cracked. Someone had been there. Maybe Ryan; she had to find him.

    Her wing knocked against the door frame on her way out, and pain shot up her back. An anguished cry ripped out of her throat as she froze, waiting for the throbbing to subside. Once it had dulled back down to an irksome twinge, she fully made her way out into the hallway and froze in horror. The room she had been in had been one of the spare surgery recuperation rooms that were rarely--if ever--used. The once clean, neat, and cheerful medical wing of the Lab had been transformed into a scene out of a horror film. Half of the lights had gone out, leaving portions of the hallway in semi-darkness and other lights flickered between reality and somewhere beyond, throwing her shadow up and down the hallway in a warped, solo dance. Bloody handprints had been smeared along the walls in several places; long, dark stains stretching across broken doors and scuffed walls.

    RT Labs was never a silent place. Doctors were always hustling too and from exam rooms, patients were always meandering about the hallways looking for ways to entertain themselves. People were always talking, laughing, singing, yelling. There was always noise. But right now there was nothing. Nothing but the stench of dried blood hanging heavy in the air and her own dancing shadow to keep her company.

    In the flickering semi-darkness, a single, stationary light shone at the end of the hallway. Lindsay staggered towards it, hoping for any sign of life. As she got closer, she could hear a faint, tuneless humming from behind the half-closed door. Lindsay paused outside of it for a second, bracing herself for what she might find. A crazed mutant, set loose on a violent rampage. A monster dripping visceral blood onto a pile of mangled victims. Anything could have done this.

    She nudged the door, and it swung open silently. Sitting at the desk inside of the office was Ryan, calmly typing at a computer as he continued to tunelessly hum to himself.

    “Oh thank God!” Lindsay cried, launching herself into the room, ignoring the shooting pain that ran up and down her now fully immobile wing. Tears blurred her vision as she rushed towards Ryan. “Ryan--Ryan, it’s awful. Everything...there’s blood, and I--I can’t remember, but my wing hurts. It hurts so badly, Ryan. Where is everybody? What happened?”

    Lindsay wrapped herself up in Ryan’s warm embrace, letting his strong arms circle around her and pull her in closer. He shushed her, carefully smoothing down the feathers on her wings, barely ghosting over her hurt wing.

    “Linds-shhh--Lindsay. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Nothing you need to worry about right now. You’re hurt. You need to rest. Come. Lie down.” He guided her over to the couch in the corner of his office.

    “B-but,” She stuttered for a moment, looking up into his dark eyes, “What happened? Is everybody okay?”

    “Nothing you need to worry about,” Ryan murmured again, reaching to grab something behind him. Lindsay felt something sharp prick her arm. A needle. But she didn’t struggle. She was safe now. Ryan had her. She was safe.

 

**Scene 2**

**It Would Have Been Better For Everyone’s Health To Let The Sleeping Beast Lie**

    Michael was laying on the couch in Gavin’s office playing on his x-box while he waited for his doctor. Just another typical day at the lab. The old leather crackled beneath him as he shifted positions; a Michael shaped indention had begun to form on the couch from all the afternoons he had opted out of therapy for a nap instead. Not that Gavin minded...usually.

    Gavin tripped into the room, a wide grin splashed across his face. Michael chuckled and paused his game. Gavin was in one of those moods, and honestly, that was something Michael could work with right now. Throwing aside his controller, he scooted up on the couch a bit and made grabby hands towards Gavin.

    “Impatient, aren’t we?” Gavin said, sauntering towards the couch, “I don’t suppose we’re actually going to have a proper therapy session today?”

    “Isn’t sex supposed to be very therapeutic or some shit?” Michael asked, grunting slightly as Gavin collapsed on top of him.

    Gavin squirmed around until his was straddling Michael, happily smiling down at his boy.

    “I think this qualifies more as Stockholm Syndrome than anything else,” Gavin replied with a smirk, leaning down to kiss the freckles that stood out in stark contrast against Michael’s pale, flushed skin.

    Gavin began to flicker in and out of focus above Michael, his figure blurring as the room around him swirled into nothingness.

    Michael was left, yet again, strapped down to a metal table, alone and bruised with nothing but a swollen jaw and a half-erect dick to show for all of his troubles.

His heavy breathing echoed harshly in the empty, dark room. Michael relaxed on the table, laying his head back against the cool metal. Everything had happened so fast. Ryan. The doctors. Everything.

    Gavin had been his first priority. That didn’t even shock him at this point. Of course, he had failed. And now here he was, strapped to a table and undergoing experimentation, just like in Jersey. Nothing had changed after all.

    Who was he kidding? Everything had changed. Because now, as he lay here, bruised and exhausted and so fucking ready to give up, all he could think about was Gavin. Back in New Jersey, he had just kept on living out of fucking spite. Spite for his doctors. Spite for the government that had put this stupid fucking system in place. Spite for everyone who thought he would never overcome his mutation. Now…now he had Gavin. Gavin who saw Michael for more than just his mutation.

    Gavin who saw him as a human being. As someone who could live a normal life outside of the cell the government wanted to trap him in. And Michel had come so goddamn fucking close. Six months. Six fucking months since he had his last breakdown. He was on some basic pills to monitor his emotions and blackouts, but nothing major. Just daily little chats with Gavin about his “feelings” and shit like that.

    Except now all of that progress had been erased. Fucking Ryan.

    Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Michael could hear keys jangling outside the door, the handle turned and a sturdy silhouette filled the frame. Ryan walked inside, whistling cheerfully to himself. Putting a file down on the table beside where Michael lay, he smiled down at the restrained mutant.

“And how are we today, Michael?” Ryan asked as he began to attach the heart and blood pressure monitor to Michael.

Michael didn’t answer, didn’t meet Ryan’s gaze, didn’t move. It was the only way he could fight back. Ryan was looking for a reaction, any reaction. It was all just data to him, so all Michael could do was not give him anything at all.

Ryan sighed.

Michael braced himself for the first hit, listening brokenly as the harsh thud of it echoed in the otherwise quiet room. It was with a hollow disconnect that he endured each punch, each hit intended to rile him up, to get a reaction. Ryan stopped, moving over to the other table with a dissatisfied sigh.

“Michael, do you understand what I’m trying to do here?” Ryan asked, staring down at the file he had thrown onto the tabletop. “I have at my disposal some of the most potent mutants in the world. With the proper experimentation, the possibilities of what I could cure are endless. But how can I do that when you are fighting me every step of the way?”

    Michael spat a gob of blood onto the floor, twisting his head to try and get it as close to Ryan as possible.

    Ryan chuckled, a dark, empty, haunting sound.

    “Do you know what room this is?” Ryan asked conversationally, walking back over to Michael. “Lindsay’s old room. On the other side of the mirror over there is small observatory room, complete with one way glass. Anyone in there can see and hear everything going on in here.”

    Michael stared up at the ceiling, counting the tiles, trying to stay calm, ignoring the thoughts suddenly racing through his brain. He couldn’t let Ryan get to him. He was just bluffing. Ryan walked slowly over to a door inlaid into the mirrored wall. Michael’s heart monitor began to beep faster and faster as Ryan fiddled with a panel beside the door.

    Over a hidden speaker, rough, fast breathing filled the room.

    “Michael? Michael, my boy, listen to me. Ignore him. Ignore Ryan. I’m fine. We’ll be just fine. Just stay calm, okay?” Gavin sounded strained, his voice cracking on the last word.

    Michael began to struggled against his restraints, thrashing about on the metal table. There was a roaring in his ears, drowning out everything. Gavin’s pleas for Michael to stay calm, Ryan’s frantic note-taking. Everything. Michael had one goal, one purpose. Get to Gavin. But, he couldn’t.

    He screamed over and over again, rasping, guttural yells that sounded vaguely like Gavin’s name repeated over and over again. In the end, Ryan got exactly what he wanted. And with a satisfied smile, he sedated Michael, watching quietly as the raging man stilled.

    No longer manically trying to escape, Michael looked calm in his medicated sleep. The bruises stood out like brands on his pale skin, the purple flesh drowning out the freckled constellations that dusted his face. Ryan reached out and laid a gentle hand on his cheek, tracing a bruise with his thumb.

    A static-y, incomprehensible yell rang out through the speakers. Ryan chuckled, turning to stare at Gavin through the glass.

    “You failed, Gavin. How does it feel?”

 

**Scene 4**

**The Voices Didn’t Want Him To Kill Himself, Just Everybody Else**

    Ray really fucking hated this chair. It was metal and cold and his ass hurt and sleeping in a chair for fuck knows how long now had given him some very interesting cricks. Also being strapped to a chair day-in and day-out and denied the basic medical attention he’d been graciously given all his life and forced to confront the scary-as-fuck voices that lived inside his head tended to put him in a very pissy mood.

    So when the door to his small, bleak room opened and the man who had done all of this to him walked in, he went a little crazy. But it wasn’t his fault; it was the voices. Just ask them.

The whispering had started almost as soon as all of the drugs in his system had worn off. It got louder and louder each day; harder and harder to ignore. Sometimes it was in a strange language he didn’t understand; maybe Latin? Sometimes it was a deep, carnal chanting echoing endlessly just out of reach. Voices, right on his shoulders, whispering incessantly in his ear, telling him to kill, to tear and rip and destroy anyone who would dare restrain him.

At first, it had terrified him. During the night, when his room was pitch black and the darkness was threatening to swallow him whole, the voices would swirl around him, enticing him with terrible deeds and long-forgotten promises.

Eventually, he had cracked.

Now, with Ryan barely inside the room, he couldn’t contain himself. Throwing himself against his bonds, he snarled at the doctor, baring his teeth and yelling something in what he was now 99% sure was Latin. The voices were screaming in his ears, telling him to break the bonds, to tear Ryan’s throat out with his teeth and drink his blood.

“Enough.” Ryan said it quietly, but his firm voice resonated deep within Ray, pulling him back from the edge of the precipice he had been teetering on since he had first been stuck in his Godforsaken room.

The voices stopped.

Ray looked up at Ryan towering over him, his breathing rasping from his raw throat.

“Please, make them stop,” Ray whispered. He couldn’t handle this. He never could. That’s why he had relied on Joel so heavily. His doctor had never let the voices become more than dull, annoying whisper that plagued him every once in awhile.

Now there was no buffer between him and the other side.

“Ray, I can’t. Not yet; you know that.” Ryan said it like he genuinely felt remorse, but Ray knew better. They all knew better now.

“Where’s Josh?” Ray asked, glaring up at Ryan, “You better not be doing this to him.”

“Josh is perfectly fine,” Ryan assured him, “Everybody is perfectly fine.”

“Bullshit!” Ray yelled, spit flying, “Just because my only company in here are the voices in my head doesn’t mean I can’t hear Michael. I know what you’re doing, Ryan!”

Everyday. It happened everyday. It was sickening, because it was Ray’s only way of keeping time inside of his room. Everyday Ryan would--would do things to Michael. Beat him, torture him, Ray didn’t want to know the details. But he could hear it. The yells and screams and cries. Michael always shouted for Gavin. Always. It made Ray want to puke.

Ryan sighed. “This would be so much easier if all of you cooperated.”

“Cooperated? With what? Your fucking systematic torture? This is worse than the fucking government labs.” Ray looked up at Ryan, imploring, “What are you trying to accomplish? You’re hurting your friends. These are people that trusted you.”

“I’m doing what’s best for all of you,” Ryan turned his back on Ray, heading for the door.

“Ryan. Where’s Lindsay?”

Ryan paused, hand on the doorknob. “She’s...safe.”

He left the room, locking the door behind him. As soon as he was gone, the voices started right back up.

 

**Scene 5**

**If I Am An Empty Shell, Then Why Have I Never Felt More Alive?**

Ryan walked slowly down the hallway, peering into windows and checking in on each patient he had confined to their rooms. All were getting appropriate amounts of food and water. Most were allowed bathroom breaks. A very careful analysis of each of their conditions had allowed him to formulate the best ways to fully draw out each of their mutations.

That was his plan. Everybody had been going about this all wrong, using medicine and therapy and any other method to muffle mutations. It wasn’t right. These mutations were the next level of evolution; they are the future, and all he had to do was unlock their secrets.

He was so close.

Walking into his office, he was surprised to see Lindsay awake and sitting in his chair

behind his desk. She wasn’t messing with anything, ruffling through random files or fucking around on his computer like she usually did in his office. She was just sitting there staring at the door with unwavering, bloodshot eyes.

    “Linds, how’re you feeling?” Ryan asked in a calm, steady voice, slowly walking towards her.

    “‘M fine,” She murmured, her eyes tracking him across the room. She seemed less like the fierce predator she usually resembled and more like cornered prey calculating its chances of escape.

    Ryan stopped right behind Lindsay, lightly putting a hand on her shoulder and squeezing.

    “How’s your wing?” He asked quietly, sliding his hand down to gently kneed at the muscles between the bases of her wings. Lindsay arched back into the touch, rubbing up against Ryan’s hand like a cat.

    “Still hurts then…” Ryan murmured with a chuckle, adding his other hand to the impromptu massage.

    “It’s just sore,” Lindsay replied, groaning slightly as Ryan worked steadily at a knot right below her right wing.

    They lapsed into silence after that, Ryan carefully massaging away the pain from Lindsay’s back and wings. She was quiet except for the occasional groan when Ryan found a particularly tightly wound knot. Ryan was grateful for the silence. It was nice to have Lindsay conscious again; that was at least one person on his side. She would understand what he was trying to do here; Lindsay had always believed wholeheartedly in his work, in every hypothesis and experiment, despite the questionable ethics.

    That’s why she refused to see any other doctor. She believed in Ryan. She believed that one day she would be able to freely walk the streets of Austin without people running away in fear, all because of Ryan.

    That was it. That was his goal.

    Ryan remembered the day Lindsay had first arrived at RT Labs, just a skinny slip of a girl with stone cold eyes and huge, black wings. It had taken a very long time for her to open up. Weeks and weeks of one-sided conversations filled their therapy sessions. Eventually something had changed; Ryan didn’t quite know when, but Lindsay had started to open up to him. She would recount the things people would yell at her. Spawn of Satan. She-Devil.

    It had made Ryan furious. It still did.

    The awful, terrible things people would say to a little girl. A little girl born with something that made her--from an evolutionary standpoint--better than them. Yet, she spent almost a year in Ryan’s office working through muddled trust issues, depression, and body dysmorphia.

    There was a reason he was so protective over Lindsay’s wings, always checking them over. Lindsay had developed a nervous habit of plucking out her own feathers whenever she felt self-conscious about her wings. It left Ryan heart broken to see scabbed over bald-patches on her gorgeous wings.

    After a year and a half of heavy counseling with Ryan, she had stopped. Ryan had vowed to himself that he’d never give Lindsay reason to do that to herself again.

    “Ryan?”

    He looked down at Lindsay, her eyes half-lidded in contentment, the pain finally gone from her wings.

    “Can I take a shower?”

    Ryan chuckled again. She really did need a shower. Her hair was matted and crusted with dirt (and maybe a little bit of blood), her hospital gown was torn, barely clinging to her body at all, and a rust red streak cut across her face, long since dried and now slowly flaking away. Ryan nodded, holding out his hand to help her out of the chair.

    Ryan walked with her back to the girl’s wing, guiding her towards a new room that he had moved her belongings into. He lingered for a moment in the doorway, listening to the rush of water and the satisfied hiss from Lindsay as she stepped under the hot stream of water.

    Quietly closing the door, he locked it behind him, and turned to head back to Lindsay’s old room. He had one more person to visit.

 

**Scene 6**

**This Is A Dead Man’s Party, And I’m Ready To Die**

    Gavin had spent many hours in this same spot happily talking to Ryan and Lindsay as the two of them sat together on the other side of the one-way mirror. He had loved this observatory room. Now it had become his prison.

    He was firmly tied to a chair placed mere feet away from the glass, positioned with a perfect view of Michael laying prone on the metal table. Here Gavin had sat for countless hours, watching helplessly as Michael, his Michael, was beaten and tortured and lied to by a man Gavin would have once trusted with his life.

    For now, Michael was quiet, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he fell in and out of a restless sleep. Gavin’s gaze didn’t leave Michael, didn’t waver, even when the door behind him clicked open and shut again.

    Gavin knew he was standing just inside the room, could feel Ryan’s stare heavy on the back of his neck,

    For several tense moments nothing happened, everything hanging in a silent, endless limbo.

    “Ryan,” Gavin ventured, testing the waters. His voice was hoarse, cracking on the end of Ryan’s name. Gavin could feel the man behind him tense up, but Ryan didn’t move, didn’t say a word.

    “You shouldn’t have stopped taking your medicine,” he said quietly, still staring steadily at Michael. Behind him Ryan sighed, Gavin watched the man’s reflection in the glass crumple. Ryan walked into Gavin’s line of sight, scrubbing his hands across his weary face.

    “It was...a necessary step. I want to give mutants freedom. That includes myself.”

    “But Ryan, look what you’ve done! Is all of this--” Gavin tried to gesture around him, but the straps on his wrists held his hands back. “Is all of this worth it?”

    “It will be,” Ryan was standing next to Gavin now, staring at Michael as well.

    “They’ll never trust you again,” Gavin told him.

    “I know.”

    In the other room, Michael cried out in his sleep, jolting awake against his restraints. He thrashed his head back and forth for several seconds, eyes wildly searching the room around him for something familiar. Gavin had already seen this act enough times; he ripped his eyes away, looking over at Ryan. Quietly, almost ashamed of himself, Gavin asked the one question that had been plaguing him since Ryan had put him in this room.

    “Have you made any progress?”

    Ryan’s mouth turned up, just slightly, a ghost of another man shining through.

    “Of course. I wouldn’t sacrifice my sanity for nothing, you know.”

    “I know, Ryan. I just--” Gavin faltered for a second, searching for the words to describe the hopeful, disgusted knot of emotion that had been sitting heavy in his gut since he had been put in this room, “I had to make sure.”

    “For what it’s worth, Gavin, I--I don’t enjoy doing this. Any of it. It’s just what’s necessary.”

    “I’m afraid that’s not worth very much, Ryan,” Gavin said, watching Michael as he settled down again on the table, falling back into his fitful sleep.

    “I didn’t think it would be,” Ryan said as he left the room, leaving Gavin to watch over Michael alone.


End file.
